Dominic Emmett

Biography

 Dominic heads the Restructuring and Insolvency Group at Gilbert + Tobin and brings nearly 30 years of significant local and international experience, including acting on some of Australia’s largest workouts and insolvencies. Dominic specialises in non-contentious restructuring and insolvency work for banks and financial institutions, as well as special situation groups and distressed debt funds. His expertise includes preparing and negotiating standstill and forbearance arrangements; debt restructuring and schemes of arrangement; structured administration and receivership sales; and advice to directors, receivers, administrators and liquidators. Recent and current roles in the resources sector include advising the majority noteholders and administrators of Mirabela Nickel, the majority group to term lenders on Atlas Iron, Bis Industries, PAG in the very recent recapitalisation of Straits Resources and the administrators of Arrium. Otherwise Dominic was or is involved in a significant if not a lead role in Nine Entertainment, Westpoint, Ansett, Billabong, Alinta Energy, I-Med, Centro, Freight Link, Cross City Tunnel, Brisconnect, RiverCity, Timbercorp, Walter Construction, MF Global, Top Ryde, Allco Finance, Raptis and FAI. A focus of Dominic’s practice is early intervention and creating restructuring solutions outside the formal insolvency processes, albeit often using the threat of formal processes to encourage, or using the formal process to give effect to, restructurings. Emphasis can be placed on solutions involving a balance sheet restructuring as an alternative to preserve value, as distinct from a more traditional asset realisation only program. Dominic’s principal areas of practice include: acting for borrowers and issuers in the local and international finance and debt markets; advising in respect of near insolvency situations (including directors’ obligations, potential personal liability exposure and the various alternatives available to corporations in near insolvency situations); negotiating and documenting standstill and refinancing arrangements; receiverships, administrations and liquidations as well as jurisdictional issues in international insolvencies (in particular, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States).

Research Interest

 Agricultural Sciences